


the point of our being

by noviembre



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Season/Series 15 Finale, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode AU: s15e20 Carry On, Everybody Lives, F/M, Fix-It, Happy Ending, M/M, Post-Episode: s15e19 Inherit the Earth, finale denialist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:34:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27619115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noviembre/pseuds/noviembre
Summary: It’s not hope. Hope is too painful. What it is — Dean’s good at a lot of things but he’s never been good at letting go of the people he loves. Call it denial, call it stubbornness, but it’s enough to keep him going.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester
Comments: 28
Kudos: 225





	the point of our being

**Author's Note:**

> Post 15x19, draws loosely on the trailer/preview pictures for the finale. This was written/posted 36 hours before the finale aired so in my mind this is how the show ends and I stand by it.

By unspoken agreement, Eileen is their first stop after the world ends and then un-ends. She’s been renting a place a few towns over since she left the bunker, and it’s an easy 40 minute drive with the windows down and not a single thought in Dean’s brain. 

Ever since the moment back by the side of the lake, when he’d caught a glimpse through the blood stinging his eyes as Jack’s eyes, glowing with golden energy, lost their scared look in an instant. Dean saw the same look on Jack that he’d seen when the kid had opened up Baby on the open road - no doubt, no hesitation, just a simple, absolute sureness that he _could_ do this. The next hit came quickly but it didn’t matter — in that moment, Dean knew they’d won. _They had won._

Since that moment he’s felt hollow, buoyant, numb. Heart empty and head pounding with a relief so thick he can taste it. 

It’s like pushing through day 3 without sleep, running on adrenaline and caffeine and a pit in the bottom of your stomach. Dean knows it’s only a matter of time before he crashes to the jagged edges waiting for him, so for now he doesn’t think about them - he doesn’t think about how he feels, or what’s ahead, or what’s not waiting for them at the bunker. He lets himself be — not happy, not angry, just nothing. Just lets himself be. 

Eileen, bold as brass, doesn’t hesitate for a moment when she greets Sam at her door, kissing him with such gusto Dean has to wolf whistle just to break it up before things get too raunchy for the neighbors. “Hi, Dean,” Eileen greets him without a single ounce of shame on her face for the show she just gave the people of Phillipsburg. Girl after Dean’s own heart. 

Sam, ever the dork, runs his hands through his hair to compose himself. After a huddled conversation that’s mostly signed (and yeah, Dean realizes, he’s gonna have to step up his signing skills otherwise they’ll be talking shit about him right in front if his face), she turns to head back to her apartment. Sam heads back to the curb, leaning against the car beside Dean.

“Eileen’s packing a bag — she’ll be staying with us for a bit.” Sam ducks his head, joy making him bashful. “If that’s cool with you, I mean?”

“Of course it is,” Dean tells him, easy. “You sure you don’t want to stay with her out here? Get some space?”

Sam shakes his head, too casual, and Dean knows Sam’s not going to let him out of his sight for a while. Sam must be seeing right through him, knowing how close he is to breaking. “Dean—”

Dean gives him a look, sharp, the same look he gave Sam when the kid was 14 and mouthy and Dad had had one too many at the bar after a hunt. A couple decades and apocalypses later, Sam still knows it: _Don’t go there. Not right now. Don’t open that can of worms._ Sam doesn’t look happy, jaw working for a moment, but he nods, accepts Dean’s warning, doesn’t push.

Eileen comes out with her gear packed in a duffel back, hunter-style, and slides into the backseat. Dean watches Sam hesitate at the front door for a minute and man, his brother’s got it bad if he’s giving up shotgun. He knows Sam’s worried about making him jealous, about rubbing it in his face that he got everything he wanted while Dean —

Dean lets his thoughts go blank, lets his mind veer away from that corner. He can’t go there yet. 

Sam catches Dean’s eyes, and taking Dean’s eye roll as confirmation to _get a grip, Sammy,_ he folds his giant body into the backseat alongside Eileen. 

“After all these years, I get demoted to your driver,” Dean tells Sam in the rearview mirror, fake wounded, letting him know that he’s not offended. He doesn’t know how to be angry about Sam’s happiness; it’s not in his nature. 

And as the Impala’s engine roars to life, if he doesn’t let himself think about the fourth seat in the car, the empty space beside him so conspicuous he could choke on it, he can almost pretend it’s a happy ending.

He gets them back to the bunker on autopilot. 

As their footsteps echo on the staircase, he can feel the numbness wearing off. 

When they stopped here before heading out after Eileen, Dean hadn’t had room in his head for anything but dumb relief at the fact that six _billion_ people had been saved, that they could finally be free. He hadn’t let himself think about what that meant — had focused on the tiny details in front of him instead of looking at the big picture. 

Drink your beer. Don’t think about how the only thing you want out of this godforsaken life is out of reach. 

Put the car in drive. Don’t let the grief swallow you. 

But the adrenaline is fading and Dean knows he doesn’t have much time before the dam breaks. His only hope is to get away from Sammy before it happens. 

Sam’s not an idiot — he must know Dean’s holding it together by a thread — but it’s one thing for him to know it and another thing entirely for him to witness whatever’s going to break open when Dean finally lets himself think about what he’s lost. Sam deserves his peace with Eileen. 

The mostly-empty whiskey bottle is still on the war room table where Sam must have left it after Dean passed out the other night. He snags the neck in three fingers, feeling Sam’s look of maternal concern on the back of his neck. The best defense is a good offense so he pastes on a leer, winking dramatically at them and crowing “Use protection, you two!” to buy him just enough time to get out of the room without a Sam-enforced therapy session. 

He’s going to his room except that’s not where his feet take him. He’s moving blindly now, down the hallways, past the book shelves, into the Devil’s Trap, into a room that was _terror-incomprehensible-exhilaration-loss_ and is now nothing but still and quiet and not-Cas. 

Dean knew Cas wouldn’t be there. He wasn’t disappeared by Chuck, like the rest; he was past Jack’s control to bring back in an instant. 

Dean knew it in the deep part of his brain that knows he never gets what he wants; that knows he doesn’t get to be happy. 

But it’s not until he’s standing there, in the place where Cas turned his world upside down, shoved him aside and sacrificed his life in an instant, that it all comes crashing down. 

And there it is — the pain and grief he’s been holding down, rising up to greet him like an old friend. 

Sliding to the ground, knees giving out, he drinks desperately from the bottle. He needs the burn of whiskey going down and the tunnel vision it provides to focus on one part of his grief at a time, taking them apart like a gun to deal with each piece at a time, because if he lets it all hit him at once he thinks he might actually drown.

There’s simple, bright grief for Cas's absence. 

The angel on his shoulder, the solid presence at his side; no matter how many times they fought and betrayed each other they kept coming back to each other, drawn to each other like magnets. 

No matter how many times Dean pushed Cas away he was always there again, always forgiving Dean — 

He can’t, yet. 

He thinks about Jack instead and it’s a bittersweet, twisted grief. Jack is content, he’s whole, he’s so bright and good he fixed the entire world. 

But Dean thinks of the kid who laughed at every stupid joke on the cereal box, who listened intently to the cassettes Dean played in the car like the lyrics to Wheel In The Sky held the secret to existence, who sat at the kitchen table and practiced flipping his fake badge open until he could do it as smoothly as any of them, and he mourns that Jack. 

The love for Jack comes easy now, not catching in his throat, and in a moment of sharp pain he wonders if Chuck — fucking manipulative Chuck — had been messing with him, playing with his emotions just enough to sharpen Dean into someone who would kill his own kid. In this moment it’s easy to think of Jack as family, and Dean’s heart breaks all over again remembering the look on his face when he’d overhead Dean’s anger. 

Regret is a bitter, familiar taste in his mouth and he chases it with whiskey.

Two of the three most important people in his life, and they both left without knowing how much Dean loved them.

He loves Cas. Of course he does. 

Sometimes in his weakest moments, when he was tired and no one was in danger and Cas looked at him with warmth in his eyes, he even let himself form the words in his head. 

All that time, and Cas loved him? The knowledge was so bright, so huge that Dean couldn’t wrap his mind around it, the words in his head on a loop until they lost all meaning. 

This — this was the worst part. Cas had — he couldn’t think the word — Cas had _gone_ without knowing how Dean felt about him. All this time, Dean never getting his hopes up because what kind of asshole would he be to think an _angel_ could even have feelings at all let alone for a fuck-up like him. 

At night, when his defenses were down and his subconscious betrayed him with impossible, painful things, his dreams would spin the softness in Cas's eyes into visions of a life he wanted so much it terrified him — images of Cas, warm in one of Dean’s shirts, human hair touched with gray as they aged together. 

He empties the bottle, tosses it without any real feeling off to the side of the room. It shatters loudly as it hits the wall and Dean holds his breath, hoping Sam didn’t hear that.

His luck isn’t that good, and footsteps sound down the hall. “Dean?”

“Ignore it, Sammy. I’m good.” 

Predictably, he hears the door open behind him anyway. Dean, facing the wall, can’t see him, but he knows the way Sam’s face must pinch up to see Dean slumped in the middle of the room.

“You’re not good, Dean.”

In his periphery, he sees Sam slide down the wall to join him on the floor, a comforting presence just in the corner of his eye. Dean sighs. Lying to Sam is hard under the best of circumstances and he just doesn’t have the energy to try right now; his defensive walls are crumbling and he can’t help but want to tell the whole story, put the words back out there so they aren’t just ringing inside his own ears. 

“No.” He exhales. “I’m really not.”

Sam’s tone is measured, and Dean knows he’s choosing his words carefully. “When you said the Empty took Cas, I got the feeling there was something else you weren’t telling me.”

Dean runs a hand over his face. “He— he made a deal. With the Empty. Apparently it came after Jack when he was dead, and Cas, he made a deal to save Jack.” Dean huffs out a humorless laugh. “Just like a Winchester. Guess he spent too much time with us."

Sam nods, doesn’t speak. Dean continues. “The deal was, he could come back to Earth but as soon as he got a moment of real happiness, that was it. Empty snatches him up, just like that.” 

“God, Cas,” Sam murmurs, shaken.

He swallows hard, tears falling freely now, but he has to get out this next part or he’ll never be able to say it. 

“And he— he knew the Empty would take Billie so he — Sammy, he told me he. That he loves me. All the way. Just the saying it, he was so happy, it brought the Empty down on him, like he knew it would — he told me he loves me to sacrifice himself—” 

He’s out of words now, choking on a sob.

“Dean, you — did you really not know?”

The reaction is so unexpected that Dean turns to face Sam properly. “Know? How could I know?”

“Jesus, Dean. You really had no idea, did you. He’s been in love with you for years.” The sympathy in Sam’s eyes is too much for Dean, but then Sam frowns, inhales — “Probably as long as you’ve been in love with him.”

“Sam—”

“I’m not an idiot, Dean—“

“You’re right,” Dean cuts him off. 

Sam ducks his head, lips twisting in a ghost of a smile. “Gotta say I expected more denial from you.”

Dean rubs the back of his neck, exhausted and hollow after getting the whole story out, faintly embarrassed by how obvious he’s been to Sam this whole time. “I don’t know, Sam. There was a time, if you’d told me I’d be having feelings for a guy — guy-shaped angel — I’d’ve punched you in the jaw.”

“The shit Dad said, Dean. He was wrong. You know I know he was wrong, right?” Sam is so earnest, so righteous about his support. 

“Yeah, Sammy, I know, you don’t need to go hoist the rainbow flag.” Dean pauses, swallows. 

“It’s just — god. All these years. I had no idea, and I kept everything hidden so he had no idea, and we go round in circles betraying and forgiving each other. All these years, Cas was the love of my goddamn life and I only found out when it was too late.” 

And that’s it, the tears are back. He buries his head in his hands, feels Sam cross over and wrap his long arm around Dean’s shoulders. 

In a low voice, Sam tells him, “We’re gonna get him back, Dean. We’re gonna bring Cas home.”

* * *

But in the light of day, it becomes clear they don’t have the slightest idea where to start. They can get to heaven and hell without much difficulty, but all crossings to the Empty have been powered by one of the heavy hitters — Billie, Jack, Chuck. Sam and Eileen are troopers, using their honeymoon phase to re-read the same texts they’ve already covered without any luck. 

It takes two days of sitting across from them before Dean can’t take it anymore (loves his brother, loves that they’re happy, but they’re so sweet he’s gonna get diabetes if he sticks around). 

Instead, he starts driving. 

Sam gives him a worried look the first time he heads out by himself, but Dean waves him off. He’s not going to do anything, doesn’t even have a destination in mind, not sure what he’s following. Something in the deepest part of his gut whispers _east_ , and a lifetime of relying on nothing other than his hands and his instincts taught him never to ignore a gut feeling. 

The roads out of Lebanon are straight shots, no hills or valleys that require curves, and you can go for miles on the highways without passing a soul. Dean takes School Avenue to the edge of town to where it narrows to a one-lane country road that bisects the surrounding fields, then floors it. 

It’s maybe an hour before the grass fields are shut out by a sudden cluster of trees along both sides of the road. Slowing Baby down, he listens out his window and sure enough it’s only a few minutes before he hears the sound of running water — just a small creek running through the oak trees, not deep enough to draw fishermen. 

When he kills the engine, the whisper of water over stones is the only sound for miles, and Dean knows he’s really alone in the way you can only get out here, miles away from the interstate and an hour away from anything that passes for a town. 

He lays back on the hood of the impala, metal pinging under him as she cools down from the drive. It’s still early but the sun’s already getting hot where it filters through the oak trees. 

Dean closes his eyes and starts talking. Starts praying to Cas. 

He doesn’t know how long he’s out there. When the sun starts to bake the black metal of the Impala’s hood, he perches on a rock beside the river, and keeps talking til his throat is raw, putting all the shit he never said out into the universe. His fears, his guilty wishes — he’d light himself on fire to give Cas a lighthouse to guide him home. 

It’s not hope. Hope is too painful. What it is — Dean’s good at a lot of things but he’s never been good at letting go of the people he loves. Call it denial, call it stubbornness, but it’s enough to keep him going. 

* * *

_Cas, man, you gotta know —_

Castiel wakes up.

He knows the Empty as pure nothing - no corners, no up or down, no end to the vastness. A geometry that itched at his Grace - his very being - in its absence of creation. 

But now, the Empty is full of holes. Yawning, jagged tears in the fabric stretch around him, expanding even as he watches, entropy itself given physical shape. Behind the oily, twisting veils he can see the glint of stars in the darkness. 

Castiel knows the universe; he has seen it from vantages other than Earth. He’s lit the fires of old stars, the ones burned out millennia ago whose light still touches the sky over Lebanon, Kansas. He doesn’t recognize these stars.

The voice, when it comes, has lost its smooth contempt. “Castiel,” it hisses, and when he turns he sees its form — still an approximation of the demon Meg, but twisted now, veiled with the same oil-slick filminess as the space around it. If he looks closely he can see a glimmer of stars through its half-realized body. “ _Castiel_ ,” it croons in a voice devoid of any really triumph, “at least I get your pain as my consolation prize.” 

“Meg,” he starts, pauses, not knowing the proper address for the primordial being. “Not Meg. What happened here?”

“The boy,” it spits, bitter, raving. “The boy god glowing with Light and Power came and ripped apart my domain. Alarm clock for all of us, now, nothing sleeps here anymore. Can’t you hear how loud it is?”

Castiel cocks his head, listening, and he hears it: Through the filmy darkness, the song of celestial bodies as they pass each other in the skies, his own form instinctively resonating to the music of the spheres like a guitar string. But they are out of tune, discordant harmonies scraping along his bones. He understands, suddenly, why he didn’t know these stars.

“Those lights. They’re souls?” 

The Empty shudders, convulses. “Demon souls, angel grace, the whole lot. All shouting all the time. And they don’t ever SHUT UP.” 

The longer he listens to the souls pass each other in the ether, the more the _wrongness_ of it sets his teeth on edge. He refocuses his listening to the being in front of him but he still feels the discordance in the distance and he understands, with a sudden swell of hopelessness, the glint of madness in Meg’s dark eyes. 

Overcome, he turns away, peering at one of the filmy slashes in the darkness to hide his emotion from the being. 

_Dean is alive,_ he tells himself, and just the thought of it keeps the despair at bay. _Dean can be happy now. Dean is alive. Dean._

That was Dean’s voice he heard, Dean’s prayer that woke him up. In the disintegrating emptiness, Castiel knows this with absolute certainty — somehow, a tiny shred of a prayer from Dean’s lips traveled an impossible distance and reached him across the void.

* * *

After the first week, Sam can’t pretend anymore that they’ll find some answer in the library or in Rowena’s spell book that could help them. They’re putting together a plan to go back to hell and talk to Rowena directly — as a demon, she’s harder to trust than she used to be, but she always did like Cas — when Sam's phone rings.

“Hey, Nadia,” he answers. He doesn’t know Nadia well — Dean worked a changeling case with her outside Decatur years ago, and since they moved into the bunker and Garth spread the word that Sam was now the official supernatural librarian, he’d talked to her a couple times when she called asking for a monster look-up. 

Dean had called her after the apocalypse-that-wasn’t, when they’d gone through every living contact on their phone to make sure everyone was okay. By unspoken agreement, Sam had done all the calls to any hunter who knew them well enough to ask after Cas.

“Sam. Glad you answered. I’ve got a weird one for you, hoping to pick your brain.” 

“Lay it on me. I’m putting you on speaker, my brother and Eileen Leahy are here as well.”

“Hi Dean,” her voice comes through the tinny phone speaker as he sets it on the table. “I only know Eileen by reputation, but I’ve heard only good things.” He turns his face to Eileen and passes along the compliment with his words and hands. Her lip reading is impeccable but he loves the way she smiles widely when he signs with her, and there’s a simple joy in the learning of it — he’s used his hands for years to fight, to kill, to destroy, and now he gets to use them to say sweet things that make Eileen’s eyes light up. 

Dean answers. “What’s up, Nadia?”

“It’s… it’s a weird one. I don’t know what we’re dealing with here. No one’s hurt, so I’m not even sure if I should be calling, but…” her voice is strained enough that they can tell she’s shaken. Sam signs to Eileen: _Nadia says strange. No death._ “I caught this over the police scanner at first, from one of the county sheriffs north of Bloomington. Reports of strange men wearing masks in the woods, on the edges of property. Didn’t make much of it. But then these teenagers were recording a video on their cell phones, and they caught this — it’s popped up in the local social media circles. I’m sending you the video now.” 

While Sam translates, Dean picks up the phone as the video comes through. They huddle around, watching what starts with a couple teenagers doing a goofy synchronized dance. One of them gasps and the camera whips around to show — 

It’s not a man in a mask. It looks like a man but that white, unsettling face is no mask. 

Whatever it is, it’s not human. 

“Any idea what that might be?” Nadia asks.

“Never seen that before,” Sam answers. Dean cuts in: “We’ll come check it out.” 

Sam, unwilling to call Dean out with Nadia on the line, gives him a sharp look. 

His brother has been holding it together better than Sam expected, but then again he’s always been good at shouldering his heartbreak. The rapid depletion of their liquor stock and his red eyes in the morning are the only indications of how poorly Dean’s managing without Cas.

There’s no reason for them to head out for this, to take time away from the thin threads of their search for Cas, on an admittedly unsettling creature that’s not even hurting anyone. After Chuck, and Jack, and Cas, it’s hard for Sam to muster much energy for some monster of the week. Not to mention it’s eight hours to Bloomington if you follow the speed limit, and Nadia had said the sightings were outside the main city, so that’s a lot of driving just for an errand.

But there’s a weird light in Dean’s eye and his tone brooks no argument. 

Sam catches Eileen’s eye — she doesn’t know his brother like he does, but even she can tell there’s something weird about this. 

After they exchange logistics and end the call with Nadia, Dean stands up, stretches. “Bloomington is what, 7 hours from here? If we get a move on we’ll still have daylight by the time we get there to check things out.” 

“Dean— are you sure you want to go? Now?” He tries to be gentle, but not so gentle that Dean will think he’s being handled with kid gloves. 

“Been a long time since I’ve seen Nadia, it’s always good to catch up with old friends. And…” Dean’s voice lowers, gets quiet, a bit shy. “I don’t know, man. I just have a feeling about this one.” 

What the hell. It’s not like Sam really had much confidence in the Rowena plan, anyway. 

Dean’s grief hasn’t come out as anger yet, like it usually does, but Sam figures if history is any guide it’s only a matter of time before Dean needs to find something to punch, and better a monster than him.

* * *

Time passes. 

Or it doesn’t. There is no fabric of _time_ in here. 

The Empty mostly ignores him, driven too mad by the noise and the chaos to gloat. Castiel, in turn, doesn’t bother it this time. He has a different thread to follow. 

He sits, cross legged, one ear cocked to the universe, listening out past the clanging harmonics of the angels and demons drifting past each other, and he waits. 

His very being is tuned like a compass to Dean’s soul, Castiel’s true north. It’s impossible, and it’s inevitable. Across the dimensions, past the fabric of the universe, Dean’s prayers find their way to Castiel. 

And Castiel hears him.

It’s just fragments at first, words coming through the static like an old TV in one of the Winchesters’ motel rooms. 

_Cas — need you — come home — find a way — Cas — Cas —_

It’s not much but it’s enough for him to tune himself to Dean’s wavelength with the same surety as when he reaches out his hand on a hunt for the weapon Dean’s tossing to him, without words, without looking, just knowing. 

The words come clearer, now. 

_Cas, I think you’d be proud of me. I wanna make you proud. For the next —when I see you again, and it’s when, not if, I’m trying to be the guy that you think I am. Not just a blunt instrument. Though I might punch you in the face first because — who says that, something like that, and then leaves? No manners at all, man. I’m so pissed at you. I miss you so much._

The tone of the words shifts, and Cas thinks maybe he’s hearing a different prayer, a different point in time. The fabric of space-time means nothing here; it could be an hour or a year later on Earth. 

_I’m holding up but man, I need you back. I’m gonna find you, Cas, you hear me? I’m not giving up on you. Not giving up on us. Not when we never had a chance to figure “us” out in the first place._

Another shift, but Castiel has the thread now. 

_I thought about if — if you were human. I’m not proud of it, man, I felt guilty just thinking it. I know it’s the worst thing that could happen to you, to lose your grace, but I thought — maybe, you know, if you were human you could have real feelings. I had no fucking clue, Cas, none at all — what kind of asshole can even imagine that an angel could, you know, could — especially not a guy like me. Even if you were human you’d be too good for me, don’t get me wrong, but it’s easier to dream. Sometimes I’d picture it, Cas, I can still picture it._

And Castiel _sees_ the scene Dean’s imagining, ghosting before him, just a flicker but so strong it takes his breath away: Cas, through Dean’s eyes. He’s leaning back in one of the bunker’s armchairs, comfortable and so visibly at home it hurts. This Cas, Dean’s dream-Cas, is wearing a flannel that’s clearly Dean’s, enough stubble darkening his jaw and gray at his temples to leave no doubt that he’s human. He looks over at Dean through dark, fond eyes, like Dean is the most absurd, extraordinary thing he’s ever seen. 

Castiel hadn’t known how obvious his emotions were on his face — no wonder every angel and demon in creation had been able to see it. 

The image fills him with longing — to see something he could want so badly, and see it through Dean’s eyes. He’d felt so sure, when he’d given himself up to the Empty, that he knew Dean was something he could never have. Now, doubt sets in — was he wrong? Could he have had something real with Dean, if only one of them had said something? 

He thinks again about the gray at his temples in Dean’s dream. His Grace is pure creation, formed by God himself, one of the most powerful forces in the universe. 

And he’d give it up in a heartbeat to make that image a reality. To be near Dean again.

Something catches in his mind, in the back of his brain. 

It’s not much — it’s almost certain not to work — but it’s something that feels like hope.

* * *

Highway 36 is mostly a straight shot east. Most of the big trucking routes take the interstate instead of the country highways, cutting through Kansas City or veering up north through the bigger cities in Iowa, so the pavement is smooth under the Impala’s wheels. It’s three hours before they hit Saint Joseph, where 36 picks up an extra lane as they cross into Missouri. 

By the time they start hitting the gentle slopes that mark the far edges of where the Mississippi River shaped the land, Dean’s back is cramping. He used to be able to do 7 hours in a single shot, only stopping to fuel the car and himself, but he’s not a kid anymore. 

Dean pulls into a gas station in Macon, Missouri, and they all pile out, stretching out stiff limbs. Eileen heads to the Dairy Queen across the street to pick up food, and Dean tosses Sam the keys across the car’s roof.

With Sam taking second shift and Eileen calling shotgun, Dean retreats to the backseat to try to get a few minutes of sleep before they hit Illinois. With his jacket balled up under his head against the window, he sleeps fitfully, dreams laced with inky black and Cas's wide eyes, everywhere he turns. 

He gives up on sleeping after that.

Eileen texts Nadia as they approach Bloomington, and she gives them coordinates to meet her on the northeast outskirts of the city. They take the frontage road that skirts alongside historic route 66, pulling off just before the railroad crossing she'd indicated.

When Sam turns off the car and they stumble out, the sun is low in the sky, lighting the fields around them with gold. Unbidden, Dean thinks of Jack and his heart aches. _If you can hear me, I hope you’re happy, kid,_ he thinks. He’s not sure if it counts as a prayer but he’s not expecting a response anyway.

Dean knows Sam’s wondering what’s going on. He’s felt Sam’s glances since they first left Lebanon. He doesn’t know how to explain it — there’s no logical explanation for why he feels this sense of surety. 

But if — when — it turns out to be nothing, to be false hope, it’s not like his heart can get any more broken than it already is, so he goes with it. 

It’s only a couple minutes before an old Subaru kicks up a cloud of dust as it pulls up behind them and Nadia steps out. “I’m glad you came out,” she tells them after a round of greetings. “I know this doesn’t seem like much, but there’s something odd here.”

“We’re specialists in odd,” Sam tells her drily. “Are you joining us on this one?”

Nadia looks a little shy, suddenly, and touches her stomach. “That’s the other reason I called you in. I’m benched from anything dangerous for, uh, the foreseeable future. Sara would have my head.” 

Eileen gets it before they do, and there’s a flurry of congratulations - Nadia with such obvious joy in her eyes that Dean has to turn away for a second to take a steadying breath. _Love. Happiness. A future, together._

It’s too much for him, and emotion makes his voice harsher than he intends as he asks her where she’s sending them.

Nadia looks startled but she recovers well, businesslike again as she unfolds a paper map of central Illinois and spreads it on the hood of the Impala. 

“The sightings are all clustered here,” she tells them, pointing to a a group of red X’s drawn in the top right area of the map. 

Dean leans over her shoulder to look where she’s pointing, and suddenly he can’t breathe. 

He hadn’t realized, before, how close they were to Pontiac. She’d said on the phone _outside Bloomington_ and he hadn’t thought— 

But the red Sharpie on the map is undeniable.

Sam hisses in a sharp breath. Dean remembers that Sam buried him in Pontiac, all those years ago, and distantly he thinks it must be funny that dragging himself out of his own grave is only the second most meaningful association he has with Pontiac. 

Because to him, Pontiac is dark wings in a barn. It’s a trench coat marred with shotgun blast and the clatter of the most powerful weapon they have as it falls to the ground, useless, and _you don’t think you deserve to be saved._

_Cas—_ he turns away from the car, shaken.

He knew something was drawing him here but it’s not until this moment that he lets himself believe, just for a half a second, that there’s something here that will bring Cas back to him. 

It’s deadly, that one moment of weakness, and it’s too late: the hope got its hooks into him, settling under his skin, and god, if he’s wrong about this, he thinks he might not survive it.

Behind him, Sam is telling Nadia not to worry, that they’ve just got history in this neck of the woods, and drawing her attention back away from Dean by asking if there are any structures or things of note at the center of the cluster of sightings.

Dean’s fist is balled so tight his fingernails dig into the scars on his palm as he hears her tell Sam that there’s just one thing out there: an old, abandoned barn.

The sense of surety, of rightness, lodged in his gut sharpens to almost a physical thing, a red string laid out in front of him that he just needs to follow — or pull — to set things right.

* * *

Sam doesn’t know what’s going through Dean’s mind. When Nadia had pointed them towards Pontiac, he’d felt a chill, remembered the sound of a shovelful of dirt hitting a pine box. He’s got plenty of bad memories to flip through like scrapbooks but burying Dean for the first time and knowing his brother was in hell — it’s high up the list. 

But Dean — Dean looks weirdly calm, focused. He waves off Nadia’s directions to the abandoned barn, telling her he knows where he’s headed. 

After they wave goodbye to Nadia and pull back onto the frontage road, it’s Eileen who cuts through the tension. “Okay, what’s going on,” she asks them in a tone that leaves no room for discussion. 

When Dean doesn’t answer at first, Sam twists in the front seat to face her. “Pontiac’s where I— where Dean was buried and resurrected, years ago.” 

Dean shakes his head, adjusting the rearview mirror so Eileen can see his lips — “It’s not just that. This barn, I know it. I forgot you weren’t there, Sam. The first time I met Cas.” 

Of course. Sam feels like an idiot. He’s heard the story, of course, how Dean and Bobby snuck off to summon the most powerful thing they’d ever heard of, how not a single weapon had worked on him and how he’d looked straight into Dean’s soul. Back in those days, he had been jealous, sometimes, like maybe if they’d all met at the same time Cas wouldn’t have so obviously disliked him from the jump. But that was a lifetime ago. 

Now Cas is — was — his closest friend aside from Dean. He hasn’t mourned publicly, because Dean’s on edge enough as it is, but losing him didn’t just hurt because of what it did to Dean. Sam missed him fiercely, missed his disgruntled sarcastic asshole demeanor and delightfully bad sense of humor. Now, knowing that the universe has drawn them against the odds back to the place where Castiel was first summoned, hope and fear rise at the same time in Sam's heart: 

_What if we get Cas back?_

_What if we don’t?_

It’s thirty minutes before Dean’s pulling them off to the dirt roads leading out into the fields. The barn, when they reach it, doesn’t look like much of anything. Definitely not structurally sound, likely abandoned by some farmer who had cut his losses in a bad year and given up on the land rather than dig any deeper into debt.

As they close the Impala’s trunk and head out towards the building, weapons at the ready, Sam gets what Nadia meant about it being _odd_. There’s something hazy in the air, an oil-slick haze that his eyes can’t focus on, sliding in front of the sky. _Holes in the world,_ he thinks, and shudders. 

Before they reach the door, he glances at Eileen. She nods at him, each with a gun in one hand and a knife in the other, ready for anything.

He lifts the wooden latch and pushes open the wide barn doors. His eyes go wide, and Dean curses softly behind him. 

Inside, the air pulses with the filmy blackness, holes in reality so wrong it sets his teeth on edge. 

He thinks of termite-infested wood he’s seen in old abandoned houses, like the air inside the barn has been eaten away in places. And behind them — nothingness, emptiness, a darkness so complete he thinks it will swallow him whole if he looks at it for too long.

In the center of the twisting emptiness, in the middle of the barn, the largest tear in the room stretches, oily and pulsing at the edges. Sam thinks for a second he can see stars behind it. 

Movement catches his eye and he aims his gun in an instant. 

From the corners step four of the pale-faced creatures. 

They hold no weapons, but Sam gets why people would call the cops on sight. There’s a terrible sense of power around them, no human emotion in those blank eyes. 

One of them, the smallest, takes a half step forward. In an instant, three guns are trained on it, but it doesn’t raise a hand. 

It just looks directly at them and a buzzing fills Sam’s ears, starting low but getting louder, higher, piercing.  Pain builds in his ears as the noise becomes unbearable. He drops his gun, clutching his ears; beside him, Dean does the same as a light sparks and shatters overhead. 

Eileen, still standing, unhurt but desperately worried, looking back and forth between him and the creatures and then — she shoots it straight in the forehead. 

The sound cuts off, abruptly. 

Sam can’t hear anything past the ringing in his ears but Eileen is in front of him, signing _Are you okay?_

He nods, touching his index finder from his chin to his fist. _Good enough_. 

Behind her, the creature hasn’t moved. The bullet didn’t take it down — it’s just facing them silently.

Beside him, Dean smears at the blood dripping from his nose. His face is pale, eyes unreadable as he meets Sam’s gaze. His mouth works - he must be saying something, but Sam’s ears are still ringing and he shakes his head. 

Dean doesn’t know much sign language — Sam knows he started to teach himself a few signs during the first moment Eileen was with them, and he’s sure that Dean’s picked up more than he lets on. But this sign he learned early — he had teased Cas with it in the kitchen once, brushing his hands down past his neck and fluttering them like little wings over his shoulders as Eileen laughed and Cas informed him grumpily that his true wings could cover the entire town of Lebanon. 

_Angel_ , Dean is signing. 

He’s right. 

Sam knows that piercing tone - an angel’s true voice, apparently. 

But the creatures standing before them are nothing like any angel they’ve met. The vessels barely look human, faces so white they could be masks, eyes hollow and vast. 

Dean slowly straightens up. The angels just watch him. Sam realizes they haven’t made any antagonizing moves yet — the sound, while painful, was just bad communication. 

The ringing in his ears is fading now, and he hears Dean address the angels. “Ok, gonna ask you a question and if you can answer in a normal tone of voice, that’d be much better. Where did you come from?”

There’s no sound this time but the leader clearly comprehends Dean’s question. It raises a hand to gesture expansively at the darkness twisting throughout the room. 

“Before then, you were angels?”

A silent nod.

“And you died?”

Another nod.

Dean shudders. He looks at Sam and — for the first time since they set out from the bunker — Sam sees fear in his brother’s eyes. 

If it’s the Empty tearing holes in their world, how do they stop everything from getting swallowed up by the filmy darkness? And if these are angels, slipping through the cracks from the Empty back to Earth, if they can get Cas back — would he even be Cas at all?

* * *

The Empty’s eyes are greedy as it forms a knife for him. Castiel feels a strange kinship — in this moment, they both can only hope that this goes as expected. Neither has anything to lose anymore. 

“When I do this,” he warns, “you have to let me go. For good this time.”

“A deal is a deal,” it hisses at him, Meg’s features distorted and unrecognizable in the collapsing darkness.

_Dean,_ he thinks, the one real thing he knows in this space, as he takes the knife to his own throat. 

* * *

_No— oh god no._

Dean can’t think. 

He’d tried to hard to harden himself against getting his hopes up. This whole time, he had in his head that the worst thing would be finding out it really was just wishful thinking leading him here — that there was no chance at getting Cas back, just his stupid heart refusing to let go. 

He hadn’t even known to be afraid of _this_. Of angels, somehow torn out of the Empty, but twisted, unrecognizable. He thinks wildly, would he even know if one of the four standing before him was already Cas? And for a moment, thinking about it, he can almost smell ozone, like the scent that lingered around Cas after he’d used his powers.

Except —

Dean’s not imagining it. The small of ozone gets sharper. The hair on the back of his neck stands up, and there’s a feeling in the air like just before lightning strikes.

Before he can consciously react, his hunter’s instincts kick in. 

“Get DOWN!” he shouts at Sam and Eileen but they’re already dropping to the floor as white-gold sparks light up the barn. 

Lightning like he’s never seen before traces along the gaps in reality, filling the barn with an impossible spiderweb of light. Crackling, it burns along the oily darkness, and Dean’s not sure what’s going on — can’t do anything except hold his breath and squint against the light — until—

“There!” gasps Sam, pointing into the corner. Dean follows his gaze, not sure what he’s looking at as one branch of the lightning fades into sparks, until he realizes — he couldn’t see that corner of the barn before. The breach to the Empty’s been sealed up. And Dean — he thinks maybe, just maybe, there’s something familiar in that lightning.

The darkness pulses, chaotic, but it’s no match for the lightning storm coming through from the other side, and it’s not long before only one patch of oil-slick black is left. It’s just the largest one, in the center of the room. The lightning traces it, slowly but surely burning away at its edges, and Dean knows with absolute certainty that the breach to the Empty’s going to be closed in moments.

And he doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing, but he knows he’s doing it. 

Dean stands. He comes to the edge of the Empty, the tear in the fabric of the universe ringed with white-gold lightning fire. And he reaches straight inside.

For a long, terrible moment there’s nothing. Just a feeling of _wrongness_ from the Empty, rejecting his human touch, and the sound of Sam shouting his name. 

_Come on, Cas,_ he prays, fiercer than he’s ever prayed. _It’s you, I know it’s you. Come home to me, Cas._

And from the Empty, across an impossible distance, a hand grabs his. 

Dean pulls, and —

Cas, looking exactly the same as he did the last moment Dean saw him, falls out of the darkness. Messy hair ringed by lightning fire, trench coat as rumpled as ever, face so beloved Dean’s heart stops beating for a moment. 

Cas stumbles as the Empty releases him, falling to his knees, and Dean goes down with him. 

“Cas. _Cas._ I got you. I got you, Cas. You’re here.” 

He takes Cas's face in his hands, thumbs tracing his cheekbones, and Cas looks tired, a little dazed, but he meets Dean’s eyes and his expression is so full of wonder. Of love, and hell if it isn’t the most obvious thing in the world now that Dean knows what to look for. 

Dean can’t do anything except tip his forehead against Cas’s and say his name, helplessly. 

His breath is rough, catching in his throat. Every place he’s touching Cas — his hands, cradling his face, their knees against each other, forehead pressed together — every contact burns hot, physical proof that Cas is here, he’s real, he’s alive. 

Cas wraps his hands around Dean’s wrists where they frame his face. 

“Dean—” he pulls back for a moment, meeting Dean’s eyes. Behind him, the last trace of the lightning burns itself out, and Cas's face goes pale, eyes rolling back as he collapses forward against Dean. 

“ _CAS!_ No, no, buddy, come on —“

Then Sam’s beside him, gentle but firm, pulling Cas away just enough to get a look while Dean grips the lapels of the trench coat with white knuckles. He can’t — not after all this. He can’t take another heartbreak.

“Dean, he’s breathing,” Sam tells him, sounding puzzled. “He’s —” Sam presses two fingers against Cas's wrist. “He’s got a pulse. Dean, I think he’s human.” 

Sam’s right, of course he’s right. Dean doesn’t know how he didn’t notice it before, but he presses his fingers up under Cas's jaw and feels what’s unmistakably a heartbeat, thrumming strong and steady.

Dean doesn’t even have time to get Cas laid out on the floor — it’s only been a moment, though it feels like a year, when Cas's eyes flutter back open. 

“Hey, hey. Still with me?” Dean asks.

Cas is still pale, but his eyes are focused when they meet Dean’s. “Always,” he says. “Just—that took a lot out of me. I’m fine, Dean.”

And—

It’s not like Dean _forgot_ , exactly, that there were four creepy zombie angels lurking in the room. It just hasn’t been at the top of his priority list. 

Now, they make themselves known again, stepping forward from where they had pressed into the corner during the lightning show. 

Cas's head swings around, seeing them, and his head cocks. “Dean, help me—” He pulls him to his feet, Cas leaning heavily on Dean’s side. 

Cas just observes them for a minute. Sadness crosses his face like a shadow. “I can offer you peace, brothers. It should be quiet now. Or you could have returned to Heaven when you first set foot back on Earth, to heal. But —” he focuses intently for a second, seeing something in their body language that Dean isn’t. 

“You’ve stayed here on purpose, haven’t you? To guard against what might come through?”

One of the angels shifts, slightly, like it’s lost a bit of tension, and Cas nods. “In that case, you should go back to heaven. All of you. The threat is gone here.” Thoughtful, he adds, “They really could use the extra power anyway.”

As if Cas has given them an order — and he was a big important general or something, Dean remembers, so maybe his word _is_ as good as an order to other angels — they open their mouths, silver grace swirling up to the ceiling, as the spent vessels drop gracelessly to the floor. 

Dean thinks for a second that if anyone is looking in this direction tonight, they’re getting one hell of a light show.

* * *

After that, there’s nothing to do but go home. 

Sam takes Eileen’s hand as they walk out of the barn into the moonlight, and Dean watches them for a moment, just breathing in the feeling of the world as it should be: Sammy got his girl, he’s got Cas at his side, monsters are handled. God, he’s so happy he doesn’t know what to do with it all.

“Let’s go home, Cas,” he says, turning. And — in all the chaos, he’d forgotten where they were. Seeing Cas now, same terrible suit as he wore all those years ago, framed against the fading sigils Dean had uselessly spray painted on the barn wall. Dean thinks about seeing Cas walk through those doors, ignoring the shotgun spray and the knife and every defense Dean’s ever thrown at him. 

All those years, and this is where they’ve come. 

And suddenly every second Dean isn’t kissing Cas is more time wasted, and it’s the easiest thing in the world to take Cas by the lapels and tug him in. 

Cas is still, just for a second, when Dean kisses him. But in a heartbeat he gets with the program, lips moving against Dean’s, hands coming up to grip Dean’s face, and there’s no hesitation. Cas's lips on his and he’s saved all over again, soul raised to a higher plane with how good, how _right_ this feels. He could drown in this. 

Dean’s blood sings, the scrape of Cas's stubble against his jaw sparking a heat deep in him, and he can’t get close enough. 

Cas's hand threads up into his hair, tugging to get a better angle, and the things that does to Dean — he has to break away to take a deep, unsteady breath.  Cas's eyes on him are dark, voice like gravel as he says Dean’s name like it’s holy. 

And Dean— Dean remembers, suddenly, that they’re in a barn and Cas was just passed out a few minutes ago, and Sam and Eileen are waiting for them in the car, and that there’s a conversation they need to have, face to face, before they fall into something here. No more assumptions — he’s gonna make sure Cas understands exactly where his feelings are at. 

It takes every ounce of Dean’s strength to pull away, and then he can’t help but to pull Cas back in for a fierce, tight hug. Fists balled up in the back of his coat, closing his eyes against the tears that threaten to spill. 

“Dean,” Cas murmurs, reverent. “I’m already home.”

* * *

When Dean and Cas walk out of the barn together, Sam knows in an instant that something’s changed between the two of them. 

They’re barely touching, just shoulders bumping into each other as they walk, but the energy between them has always been visible from the moon. It used to be such obvious longing on both ends that half the time Sam wanted to lock them both in a closet together and now, by the looks of things, they might as well have a neon sign over their heads that says “We just made out!!”

Their hands knock against each other, linger, and Sam’s heart swells up so much he could burst. The thing is, Dean deserves this. He really does. He’s put everyone else’s happiness before his own. If anyone deserves to get a happy ending, it’s Dean. 

Cas looks around, and his brows furrow. “Jack? Where’s Jack?”

Sam swallows. What happened with Jack is still hard for him to process. He’s so, so proud of him but he can’t help but to mourn the loss. Cas reads something in his face and he tenses. “Sam, what happened?”

“No, it’s not — he’s okay.” Sam reassures him quickly. He smiles, but it’s sad. “He’s better than okay. He saved the world.” He tells Cas the outline of what happened: the disappeared world, the fight with Chuck, Jack’s new role.

“I always knew he would save the world,” Cas says, thoughtful. He tips his head up, looking out at the night sky over Illinois. “It’s what I saw from the first time he spoke to me, before he was even born. Still, I— I am going to miss him. The Jack that we knew.”

Sam can’t say anything to that. It’s the biggest win they’ve ever had but what they had to lose to get it — it’s going to be bittersweet for a long time. 

It’s the middle of the night and Cas is still pale around the edges, so instead of pressing on to the bunker they head back into Bloomington to get a motel. There’s no discussion as Dean passes Sam the keys to the Impala and slides in the backseat beside Cas.

As Sam drives, Cas tells them what happened on his end. How the Empty was collapsing, after Jack had gone there and exploded with energy, and the being there was being driven mad by the cacophony.

“Is that what happened to those angels in the barn?” Eileen asks. 

“I assume so,” Cas tells her. “It was unbearable to listen to, to exist in that space, even briefly.”

“But you’re okay?” Sam asks.

“I am. I had something else to listen to.” 

In the rearview mirror, Sam sees Dean’s eyes widen, and he thinks he knows what Cas is going to say even before he goes on.

“It shouldn’t have been possible, but with the Empty as disintegrated as it was, I was able to hear your prayers, Dean. They kept me focused. Gave me something to hold, a tie to reality.”

It’s, like, the fourth time their love for each other has defied the laws of the universe anyway, so Sam can’t even be surprised at this point.

“And I realized,” Cas goes on, “that I could — what’s the saying about birds and stones?”

“Kill two birds with one stone,” Dean offers.

Cas wrinkles his nose. “No. I don’t like that. I could accomplish multiple objectives at once. The Empty really could only hold me because I was an angel. If I didn’t have my grace — I think it might have held me out of spite, but it would be like you in Purgatory, Dean. An afterlife not designed to hold a human. But I could offer the Empty something else to make sure it released its grip on me. Grace is pure creation. It’s incredibly powerful. I had a thought that if I carved my Grace out I could unbind it into the Empty.”

“Unbind it?”

“You haven’t experienced this before. It’s rare, because it’s the energy of pure creation. It would be dangerous to let that loose where Creation already exists. But in a place like the Empty, where there’s nothing—“

“All the holes in the universe get patched up,” Dean finishes. “That’s one hell of a play, Cas. What if it hadn’t worked?”

“Then I would likely still be in the Empty, no longer able to hear your prayers without my grace, and slowly going mad, as the Empty’s ongoing collapse threatened the stability of the entire world.”

In the mirror, Sam sees Dean makes an abortive move towards Cas, then — clearly remembering he can do this now — wraps his arm around Cas's shoulders. He whistles lowly. “You really never do anything by half, do you, Cas.”

“Why here, though?” Eileen asks. “And how did you know to come here, Dean?”

“I think I have an idea about the first part,” Sam offers, angling his face towards Eileen. “I was thinking about what Chuck said when he was in the bunker, about how every other Castiel in every other world went back to following Heaven’s orders after saving Dean from hell. I mean, if that’s true, then the place where you met, where this universe’s Cas got on a path to rebel — and, I guess, meant that our world still exists as a result even after Chuck destroyed all the others. Then, that’s some pretty potent dimensional resonance, right?”

“If it’s the place where this earth came the closest to the other realities and then diverged,” Cas says, thoughtful. “That _would_ make it a powerful locus for celestial energy. It would make sense that the breach with the Empty would open up there. Is that how you knew to be here?”

Sam shakes his head. “I only put it together after the fact. It was Dean that took us here.”

Attention on him now, Dean runs a hand over his hair. “I don’t know how to describe it. I just had a feeling about what to do. To keep praying, to keep heading east. I’m no psychic or anything, just listened to my gut on this one.”

“I wonder—” Cas frowns. “It’s not usually possible, but I suppose, if the link is strong enough you might have been able to tell that your prayers were being heard. Not much of a two way connection but just enough to maybe give you a thread to pull.”

Sam huffs out a laugh. “If there’s anyone whose ‘link is strong enough’ it’d be you guys.” 

Dean’s quiet, and when Sam looks back in the rearview mirror he’s looking at Cas with such an awestruck expression that Sam has to look away. He feels like he’s intruding, just seeing his brother look that vulnerable.

* * *

Eileen’s the one who checks them in as they unload the car, so Dean guesses he shouldn’t be surprised when she comes back with two rooms, each a single. Sam would have danced around it more, if it had been him, but Eileen had just grinned at him when she tossed Dean the second key and told him and Cas she’d see them in the morning.

“I’d like a shower,” Cas tells Dean as he unlocks the room. “I remember this, from being human before, how often cleaning is required.”

“All yours, man,” Dean tells him. “Do you need something to wear? I’ve got enough for a four-day hunt in the bag, so should be plenty.” The fact that his hands are trembling ruins his casual wave towards the duffel, but Cas, thankfully, either doesn’t notice or lets it pass without comment. 

As the water turns on in the bathroom, Dean fumbles with his boots. All the pent-up emotional energy of the last few hours is really hitting him and he can barely undo the laces, like a nervous teen on prom night. He takes off his jacket and layers, stripping down to just a t-shirt and jeans, and lies back on the bed.

He tries to put his thoughts in order, but they won’t cooperate much. It’s an endless loop of _He told you he loves you, that he wants you, and he heard your prayers so he probably knows how you feel, unless he’s changed his mind, unless he regrets it, but —_

Dean hadn’t noticed the water turning off, but the bathroom door clicks open, letting out a cloud of steam and Cas. Cas, human Cas, damp hair looking a complete mess, soft and vulnerable in Dean’s t-shirt and boxers. He looks gorgeous and touchable without all the layers and Dean swallows hard. 

It’s like a djinn got to him and created a world where he gets everything he wants — he just doesn’t know how to reach out and take it. But he thinks he can try. Thinks he’d do anything, now, to have this.

Cas looks at him on the bed. Dean sits up, knows maybe he should do the gentlemanly thing, offer to take the floor, not push things too fast, but he’s only human — he needs Cas close. They don’t need to do a damn thing but if Dean wakes up and Cas is the first thing he sees when he opens his eyes in the morning, well. That thought shouldn’t make him week in the knees but hell, he’s getting to be a sap in his old age. 

Cas doesn’t seem at all bothered by the situation, anyway. He comes to the bed, sitting cross legged on the covers facing Dean. His face is as open as it was in those last minutes back in the dungeon, like he’s dropped a layer of armor Dean never realized he was hiding behind. His blue eyes are wide and wondering as he looks at Dean.

“It seems maybe there’s been some misunderstanding between us,” he tells Dean. 

Dean laughs quietly. “Man, that’s an understatement.” 

“What I said to you,” Cas starts, pauses, and every one of Dean’s fears feels like a pit in his stomach. 

“Did you — did you mean that? Do you still mean it?”

Cas still looks fond, but also exasperated. “Dean, my love for you is so strong that just saying it out loud summoned an ancient primordial being to snatch away my happiness.”

“Don’t think Hallmark sells that card,” Dean jokes weakly. “How— how long?”

Cas looks at him evenly. “A long time. It’s hard to say exactly, because I was still learning what human emotions were at the same time I was falling in love with you. But it’s why I disobeyed. I loved you and so I chose your side over Heaven’s.”

Dean can’t speak for a moment. _All those years._ Jesus. “I didn’t — man, I never knew. I didn’t think an angel could— I mean, you guys aren’t even supposed to be able to feel that, right?”

“It turns out I’m not very good at doing what I’m supposed to,” Cas says wryly.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Dean asks. “Before the deal with the Empty, I mean.” 

Cas breaks eye contact for the first time, ducking his head to look down. “You— Dean, you made it so clear that you didn’t think of me the same. That you cared about me as a ‘pal’” he sketches the air quotes, “and I didn’t want to risk jeopardizing our friendship.”

Dean wants to go back in time and slap his past self. All the repression in the world, all that never letting himself really want what he can’t have — except maybe he could have had it all along and he was just too chickenshit to say anything.

“So lemme get this straight. You never told me how you felt, because you thought I didn’t see you the same way and it was one-sided, and I never told you how I felt, well, because I’m a coward, but also because I figured it had to be one-sided anyway.” He rubs the back of his neck, laughing without a lot of humor. “Coupla idiots.”

“About that.” Cas looks up at him again, pinning him with a searching gaze. “‘How you felt.’ What I heard in your prayers — well, and the kissing — I don’t want to make any assumptions. I’m clearly not very good at them.”

“Yeah. Okay. I—” Dean looks away at the wall, clenches his fist in the scratchy motel bedding. _Get a grip, Winchester_ , he tells himself. Last week he stood up to the actual, literal God. This shouldn’t be harder than that (except it is, because the worst God could do is kill him, but what Cas can do to him, when Dean lets him hold his heart in his hands — it would be much worse). He takes a deep breath. Looks back at Cas, who’s waiting patiently.

“I’ve been in love with you for years, Cas. Since Purgatory, at least. Maybe earlier, but everything was clear there. Chased by monsters day and night and still when I found you at that lake it was the happiest I’ve been in, hell, I don’t know how long. That’s when I knew for a fact.” Cas's eyes on him are burning, dark and wide and wondering, and Dean keeps going. 

“The— the guy thing made it easier to pretend it was platonic, for a while. I don’t usually—”

It’s not like there haven’t been guys, in Dean’s past, fumbling teenage makeouts with the fear of John Winchester hanging over his head, a handful of frantic messy hook-ups in his twenties, when he was alone at a bar after a hunt, adrenaline singing in his veins, whiskey making him loose enough that he didn’t haul off and punch the guys that approached him. That thing with Crowley, but he doesn’t count it if he was a demon at the time.

“I thought, once,” Cas's voice is quiet. “If I had been in a female form when we met. Gender is irrelevant to me, you know. The last time I was on earth I took a female vessel. I thought maybe—“

“Hey, no. I like this vessel. You’re perfect.” Dean puts a reassuring hand on Cas's knee. Except — he forgot that Cas is only wearing his boxers. Heat races up Dean’s spine at the feel of Cas's warm skin under his. The room is suddenly quiet and Dean’s forgotten how to breathe.

Cas looks down at the hand on his leg, then — slowly — up to Dean’s face.

“You want this,” he says, low. It’s not a question but Dean hears the need for confirmation.

“I want _you_ ,” he says.

Cas's eyes go predatory, and _hell yes_ this is happening. 

Surging to his knees, Cas wraps his hands at the side of Dean’s neck and pulls him in, fierce. The kiss is desperate, like they’re trying to make up for lost time. The angle is a little awkward for Dean and Cas is relentless, so Dean lets himself be pushed back to the bed as Cas chases him down.

He’d thought — imagined — that Cas would be shy, inexperienced. That Dean would be taking the lead. But god, he’s never been so happy to be wrong. Cas is pushy, one hand in Dean’s hair and the other under his jaw, thumb pressing into Dean’s neck in a way that Dean thinks, distantly, he should be embarrassed by how much it turns him on.

Dean gives as good as he gets, pulling their bodies together with his hand pressed into the curve of Cas's lower back and threading the other into his hair, still damp from the shower. He pulls Cas's lower lip in with his teeth, presses kisses along his jawline, sucks a bruise into the corner of his jaw. 

He shudders there for a moment, face pressed into Cas's neck, so overwhelmed with happiness he has to just breathe in, the smell of motel soap and of Cas, familiar and beloved. Cas murmurs his name above him, fingers stroking along his jawbone, tracing the curve of his ear. 

Needing to be closer, Dean hitches up a leg, letting all of Cas press against him and as their hips realign— oh. 

Cas makes a noise at that, a shocked moan. Dean’s still in his jeans but Cas is pressed against him only in thin boxers. Dean pulls back to watch Cas's face as he rolls his hips a second time, purposeful. Cas's head tips back, looking wrecked, and he gasps out Dean’s name. 

It’s too much. It’s not enough. 

Everything is a blur for Dean, then, just a tangle of Cas's hands on him, lips on his neck, the quiet gasps Cas makes as they press into each other, the clink of his belt buckle as Cas works open his jeans. His whole body is lit up, every place Cas touches him like holy fire, like the white-gold lightning of Cas's grace lighting up the barn. It’s an unsophisticated press of bodies and Dean thinks, distantly, that next time he’ll give Cas more than just grinding like teenagers — but for now, he can’t stand to lose even an inch of body contact. He’s so close already, strung out on the feel of Cas pressing into him.

Cas groans, shamelessly loud, and his hips stutter. His hand moves from where it’s been clutching Dean’s side, up to his shoulder, and he gasps Dean’s name as he comes. Dean’s vision blurs, tears pricking his eyes, Cas’s hand gripping his shoulder tight — and that’s it, Dean is over the edge, pleasure lighting up his every nerve.

It’s a long time before he comes back to himself, gasping to catch his breath. Cas shifts to press along his side, and Dean can’t do anything but wrap his arms tightly around him.

“Fuck, Cas,” he says when he can finally trust himself to speak. “We should have been doing that a long time ago.”

Cas’s eyes are warm when they meet Dean’s, and he hums. “Yes. But I’m glad we’re here now.” He yawns, then, and — right, Cas is human now. They’re going to have to talk about that at some point, figure out what’s next. 

There’s a whole world of possibility, now. Any choice he wants to make. 

For now, this is what Dean chooses: to fall asleep with Cas pressed up against him, to wake up together tomorrow and complain when Cas uses his toothbrush. To knock his shoulder against Cas’s in the vinyl booth of a diner and hide a blush in his coffee when Sam teases them. To put his hand on Cas’s knee as the Impala roars down a highway. 

He thinks it’s just about as perfect a use of free will as anything. 


End file.
